The Third Step: Chapter Fifty-Six

After the official opening of the tournament, it was late, but not so late that I wanted to immediately return to bad. Instead our gaggle of people meandered around the accommodations of Silent River Sect. The atmosphere there was electric, as competitors rushed from place to place, ate from the freely provided platters of food, and flirted desperately with one another. There were people there for the core tournament, like me, but there were also hundreds, maybe even thousands, of specialists who were there for their specific events, so I ensured that Dusk and my masks were on tight, while Dawn rested within Dusk’s realm. 

Our group slowly split off in different streams: my grandmother conversed with Kene’s, somehow able to get half-coherent answers out of her. Liz dragged Ed off to go dancing, finding one of the copious temporary gymnasiums, meant to be used for training, that had been converted into a temporary dance hall. My father asked to retire to my home in Dusk, and Kene joined him not long after. I hung around for a little bit longer, allowing my senses to mingle through the crowd, and listening to the winds whispering within my spirit. 

That seemed to be the right choice, as powers began to appear within the crowd. It was slow at first, a couple of the false Occultists that were on Kijani’s Constellation Council joining in among the competitors to chat, make deals, and forge business relationships. Then other presences started appearing, wielding Titles. The first one I sensed was the Farmer, which caused me to pause. 

He was the Farmer. But how did I know he was the Farmer? I shouldn’t know that, not just by the feel of his spirit and mana, and yet I did. Was it the result of the Soulgaze spell? Except, that couldn’t be it either. After all, I’d done the same thing in Crysite. Somehow, without a good reason, I had known that the Lady of Destruction had been born. And I had known the Terminarch had arrived. I hadn’t heard the terms from either one, but I’d known them. It was strange, and I wondered if it had anything to do with my expanded resonance.

Slowly, more Occultists began to trickle in. Some of them felt unfathomably weak, like the Lady of the Sunscorched Desert. That did make sense – anyone whose title involved a specific geological location was likely to be incredibly weakened this far away from it. She was an excellent example for that, in particular, because her son was competing, and I approached to say a quick hello, only to go unrecognized by Kamal. I supposed that was fair. It had been ages since I’d seen the man, after all. The half-phoenix and his trio of bodyguards had all progressed nicely, sitting at the very top of fourth gate, and their spirits were absolutely full to bursting. As I waved, and Kamal gave a confused, but pleasant, wave back, someone bumped into me, nearly dropping his flute of plum wine. 

“Ah, sorry about that,” he said to me, before spotting Kamal and grinning broadly. The drunk man pointed at him, while nudging me. “Have you seen this guy? I’ve got seven hundred yellow shards sayin’ he wins. He’s easily one of the best competitors in the tournament.” 

“He’s really not,” I said quietly, the words emerging from my mouth before I could stop myself. There was an instant of silence as Kamal, the drunk man, his guards, and even the Lady all turned to look at me. I shrank back, tempted to teleport away, but… it was true. 

Kamal clearly had the marks of a Lushloam and a Purestar seed rushing through him. He had another treasure that had faint dripping traces of destiny as well, and though I wasn’t quite able to identify exactly what it was, it seemed to be amplifying his permanent force armor. His mana was dense and potent, and he had an absurd amount of it, easily ten times as much as I did, even removing both of his fourth gates. His spirit was packed with so many natural treasures, elixirs, and pills, that it almost felt like he’d eaten an entire alchemy shop. 

On paper, he was certainly one of the strongest competitors here. But I hadn’t been lying when I said he wasn’t one of the best competitors. That was a bit pedantic of me, but I found it to be a matter of practicality. Kamal had a lot of power, that was true, but there wasn’t the same air of danger around him as the girl on the train. In fact, I was confident that if Kamal and I were to fight right now, even with his power advantage, I’d win. It would be hard, but I thought it would play out similarly to my fight with the assassin. She’d been well ahead of me in raw power, but lacked… something. 

It made me wonder just how hard Ivy worked when I wasn’t around. It was easy to chalk all of his power up to his legacy, but he didn’t give me this feeling, like an overripe fruit. He felt, and was, talented and powerful in equal measure. When I felt Ivy’s spirit, he felt more like an Arcanist than he did a fourth gate. When I felt Kamal, it just felt like a rich kid coasting on unearned power.

“Care to explain that comment?” the Lady of Sunscorched Desert asked. I turned and bowed to her, before nodding, glad that the mask would help hide my identity. I tried to think of the most diplomatic way to rephrase it, and settled on a half-truth. 

“I spoke without thinking my words through, and so I framed them poorly. Your son is very powerful, very powerful indeed. He’s a fine fighter, and if I were to face him, I’d certainly need to utilize a trump card or two. But power and quality are not the same. I can discern power, but to pass judgement on skill before matches even begin? That I cannot do. If he has the skill to match or exceed the power he wields, he might well win. But I cannot say that he does – nor can I say he doesn’t.” 

I felt the presence of the Lady bear down on me, not in an attack, but simply a pressure of mana senses, bearing at me to not be rude. An instant later, a new power brushed her sensory thrust aside as the Headmaster approached. His power was eighth gate, rough and powerful, clearly the complex layering of environmental energy that belonged to a dragon, but I couldn’t discern what environment. It almost felt like one of the urban estragon that formed around trash heaps and the like. Was he an urban dragon? I hadn’t been aware there were any of those. 

“Oh, come off it, you know as well as anyone that power is only as useful as a person’s ability to apply it,” the Headmaster said, smiling. “I’d put either one of my students here up against yours. What do you say? Want to make it a bet?” 

As the Headmaster passed, he winked surreptitiously at me, and I let out a sigh of relief, using the opportunity to teleport away, only for my teleportation to get snagged by a greater power than my own. I felt like a fish on a hook as I was inexorably pulled through space to appear somewhere else. That might have been fine if it was Orykson doing the pulling, but this was a power I didn’t recognize.

I appeared before a man I didn’t recognize, the Shepherd. His skin was covered in runes and spiral patterns, tattoos as complex as they were magical. Every part of his outfit seemed to be made from some sort of organic material – there were feathers woven together, hide, wool, buttons made of elk horn, and more. The Shepherd radiated an aura of seventh gate life and spatial mana that was calming, though different from most that I’d met. There was clearly some strange interaction with his mana and his tattoos, and one I didn’t understand. 

“Sorry about that,” he said with an apologetic smile, before flexing his Title and creating a private bubble around us. I nodded, but with the back of my mind, I prepared to reach for Dusk and flee, even if I doubted I could. 

“You’re the one who smuggled mantle estragon eggs, aren’t you?” the Shepherd asked. “And you’ve sent some hudau tortoise eggs our way. You also bear the mark of the small folk with accolades from many different types, so you’ve helped lots of them, and you’ve managed to keep alive a starsoul dragon without it falling to corruption?”

“That’s me,” I confirmed with a nervous chuckle. There was no point in lying, but at the same time, it felt very awkward to have my deeds all laid out like that.

“Your friend Edgar just arrived in Elohi, and is making his way to the sanctuary,” the Shepherd said. “I’m sure he’ll call you when he arrives. But honestly, I just wanted to meet you. It’s rare to find someone skilled in battle who cares about being a conservationist. Too many look only at the natural world as something to extract resources from.” 

“I do harvest plants and herbs, but I try to ensure that I only take what the environment can sustain,” I said with a nod. “And I try not to kill animals when I can avoid it. I even feel a bit bad about the desolants I killed.” 

“Ah, that’s right, you’ve got the medal of honor,” the Shepherd said, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “How could I leave that out?” 

“Please, do leave it out,” I groaned. “I don’t… Ugh. That was a lot of attention and praise for a job that I didn’t do well enough.” 

The Shepherd’s smile went from teasing to sad then, and he clapped me on the shoulder. 

“Well, be that as it may, when you come to the sanctuary, you should spend a bit of time working with me and my sheep. You’re not focused on the shapeshifting form of life magic, but a spell and a bit of training rarely go amiss.” 

The bubble around us loosened then, and I nodded, thanking the Shepherd as I went to wander through the crowd. When I felt the touch of the Craftsman, I immediately teleported over. The man looked as strange in person as his illusion had, about my height, but stocky, with hair that looked like it had been spun from garnet and eyes that shifted color every couple of seconds. He  and his clothes were both grease stained, and he looked sorely out of place.

“Oh, hello,” he said, blinking as I folded into existence next to him. “Sorry, I only accept a backlog of fifteen orders at a time, and they’re all full right now.” 

I felt a bit bad that he’d immediately assumed I’d come to him for work, but ultimately my partner’s life was on the line. I pulled out a golden ticket, one with the doodle of him on it, and held it out to him. 

“Even for one of these?” 

He took the ticket, then sighed and lit it on fire with a finger. An instant later, it crumbled away into ash, and I had a horrifying instant where I worried the Craftsman was going back on his word. 

“Alright, I’ll get you in as soon as I can, though it might be right at the end of the tournament, and you have to give me whatever news you have about Elio and Idyll. What did you want? A growth item? A gate key? An Occultist level enchanted weapon? I won’t make you a Magi level one, that’s just asking for trouble.” 

The latter half of the sentence sounded tired and more than a little bored. I was sure that he was constantly approached for those sorts of things, after all. How often did he get the chance to work on something new?

Well, hopefully my request wouldn’t be boring. 

“I want you to help me build an artificial soul.”